In the past we've aimed for something like 10 Eastern Time (Daylight time, in this case, which I believe is UTC-4). That works pretty well for those of us in the States, but I believe there are some people who are in Europe who were wanting to join to. Not sure where that puts you.

Me personally, I don't care when we do this. I'm willing to get up kind of early to make it happen if needs be, or start later and work into the night if that's of any use.

Bear in mind, if we have more than 5 people who want to do this, I'd suggest we split up into two or more teams. I don't actually expect that, especially since I think some of the "regulars" for this are not going to be joining this time around due to conflicts. But in the event that it does, if timing is our biggest issue, we can split into two teams based on time zones maybe. Just a (probably irrelevant) thought.

So, just as a quick reminder - thats coming up this weekend! I'd like a sound-off from all those who are going to be able to join us, and it's probably time to start mulling a time frame and project ideas!

The results of our last collab, if you didn't get to see it:

Pisces, I was looking at the previous collabs and the videos you put together are great for both of them. It is cool to see something presentable of the results.

I guess it kind of depends on what we're going for with the collabs - if it's more of a team coding challenge, the single eight hour period might be better because it's more difficult, which makes it more of a challenge, but if we're just wanting to make something small together, probably the two four hour periods would be easier. And, I suppose that if no one particularly cares which way we go, we could alternate between the eight and four hours every collaboration to shake things up. Honestly, that's probably my personal preference (to go back and forth between the two).

It does make me think we maybe ought to consider some variations on the theme here. Perhaps not for this particular collab. Perhaps yes.

In the chat room last night, a couple of ideas came up that were out-of-the-box thinking, and I'm open to others if it makes sense. (Perhaps we go with the normal plan for this one, and try out a different variation next time around. I don't know.)

1. Pick two week days and do four hours each night. If people's weekends are crazy busy, then maybe a Wednesday/Thursday thing makes more sense. I'm certain I could manage to get in four hours on each of two nights with the group. I don't know if that helps others though.

2. Perhaps we do the collab without necessarily being "face-to-face" in the chat room the whole time. Maybe we plan the collab for a weekend. We have a short kick-off on Friday evening for everybody who can manage to be there to kind of plan things out, brainstorm, and maybe divvy things up among the group. Then people can work on the game whenever they've got time over Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday. I could probably be around and available through most of that, so nobody would really be going at it alone blindly. I worry that it dilutes the collab a bit, but it does give people more flexibility.

Brett

So. I'm going to propose we try for mid-August. My first two weekends in August are booked for sure, and the weekend of July 25th might not be that great for me either. The 24th of July is a state holiday in Utah, and while I don't have any permanent plans yet, my wife and I have been talking about some possibilities. I don't think she'd be too happy if I just planned a collab instead.

That leaves this next weekend, which is kind of short notice, or mid-August. Maybe the 15th or the 22nd.

Of course, if one of those three weeks I skipped works best for everybody else, you could always do it without me. I've got no problems with that.

While we're on the topic of scheduling, I'm going to go open up a different discussion about Competition #6…

Honestly, I'd kind of forgotten that this was tentatively being planned for June or July, but I'm definitely up for it now that I remember! I can still be flexible on the exact date, but it would either need to be in July or early August (like, the first weekend) for me to be available.

Thanks for providing a reminder!

I would still be interested in a collaboration. Has any effort been made to reschedule? I would generally be available late July or in August.

-Brett

As far as your baby, with my other comments about rescheduling, hopefully that's better for you as well.

And 6 hours of solid work would be plenty. It seems like we've usually had a couple of people there the whole time, and a couple others who have had to be gone for part of it. So you wouldn't be alone. It's probably not worth it if it's only 30 minutes, but 6 hours is more than enough.

Sorry for such a late response.

I think maybe at this point we can wait until after Competition #5. So Collab #3 might be late June or July. Based on what people were saying in the chat room and such, I think postponing by a couple of months will be better all around.

Anybody have any specific dates in late June or July that they'd prefer or already have filled up with other things?

I would be interested in participating and would vote for C#/XNA as I've never used Monogames. However, I also wouldn't mind trying Monogames out if others want to use it. Is Mercurial going to be the Version Control System? Will it be hosted on BitBucket?

My wife and I are expecting our second child around the end of April, so the earlier in the month the better. If things happen quicker then expected, I may have to flake out and not participate though. Also, I would probably only be able to commit about 6 dedicated hours of solid work.

Brett

I'd propose C#/XNA, though I don't think it would be too hard to convince me to go the MonoGame route, since I think most of us here could use a little more MonoGame experience (including myself). We'd get more done with XNA, I think, but MonoGame would be a good use of time.

And of course, if we get 5+ people jumping in, I'd probably suggest splitting into a couple of teams. Maybe even competing with different technology stacks or something. Just for fun.

We can talk about what game to make in a separate thread. I just want to know what day might work well for people.

Saturdays tend to be the best for the most people, so I think we aim for one of those. And I want to give people enough time to take time off from work or ask for a different shift, or otherwise make time available on their calendar. So I'm thinking sometime in mid-April maybe.

So I'll put the 11th of April, the 18th of April, and the 25th of April as options. Any thoughts? Any of those days particularly good or bad for people?